January 14, 2010

Open mouth, insert battery.

Yesterday, Chase and I got home and I pulled out some new toys that he'd gotten from Christmas thinking that he might be excited to play with them. He was mildly amused for approximately one minute. After quickly losing interest in the new toys, he crawled over to the coffee table. He very carefully opened one of the drawers and started pulling stuff out. The 'stuff' that up to this point had been stored in those drawers were basically random things, mostly things that are not appropriate for babies to play with (i.e. lighters). He'd never had an interest in these drawers before last night. So of course I immediately started taking those things out of the drawers, moving each thing to the kitchen counter so he couldn't reach them. As I was in the midst of transferring things out of Chase's reach, I glanced down at him and noticed that his lips were closed tightly and he seemed to be chewing on something. I immediately took him into the kitchen and try to push my finger into his mouth. He clamped his jaw down more tightly and started sqealing angrily. At this point I definitely knew he had something in his mouth. I remembered from taking First Aid and learning that you never reach directly into someone's mouth if they are choking to avoid jabbing it further down their throat. So, keeping this in mind, I pushed my finger in the side of Chase's mouth and swept from one side of his mouth to the other. Out comes this tiny battery. Hmm. Odd. Because I never saw him pick up the battery, much less stick it in his mouth. So, needless to say I was/am slightly shaken up by this but so thankful that he didn't swallow the battery. Jeez. And to think that I was arms-length away from him when this happened...What a scare. (I sat the battery beside the chapstick so you'd have an idea of the actual size.)